How to deal with this kind of client?

[glorybound]

come on, stop with “stick to your guns, know your value, wait for clients that respect the work”. apparently things are quite different in the market described before. do not wait for somebody to pay you premium - adapt to the market, cut your costs - change the software for a free alternative, change the software to save on hardware. 2 hours per image? look at Lumion. sure, 3k€. but its full package, all the libraries included. you will save a lot on workstation - you do not need 32 cores or 3 graphic cards. the amount of images this thing can pump out in an hour is amazing. and after that you can try to leverage cheap animations to get more revenue.
adapt or starve. you will not change the market.

Oh, so wrong in my opinion The ones who "stick to their guns" survive. I can't tell you how many people I know, who didn't understand the business, are gone. At least here in the states, the ones who do the best work, regardless of price, are the king of the hill. The others are always there, but they come and go. The wise know this and will pay to get the well-established people, who have a long history of successful projects, which to the client is worry-free and worth the cost. People who cut corners to save money don't get it and their project will always be plagued with issues. Put it this way, here in the states, people pull the highest-priced item off the shelve because they assume it is superior; it is all about perception. Now, you can't charge more for less, so you have to do good work. However, if you have two equally good products in appearance, people will place more value on the more expensive because, of course, it has to be better.

Yesterday I purchased a shaver. I went to the most expensive ones first, because I don't want junk that'll just break. There were several at the same price-point, so I went with the box that was heavier, assuming what was in it was better built and higher quality. No, they just used thicker cardboard packaging to make it heavier. Also, even though there were several at the price-point, one was marked down from a higher price. No, it was never at that higher price, it is a marketing trick and changes peoples' perception.

So, don't tell me you can't get paid $1000-$2000 an image, two or three of these projects a week. Better website, better proposal software, better business card, better-looking everything, which is why you get paid more for the same work. It is all about perception and not a race to the bottom, which again, is how the back-yard mechanics work. Pay the backyard mechanic 1/2 the price, but end up bringing it to the dealer anyway because your cheap came out expensive.

[piotrus3333]

yep, sure. “in the states” right?

[glorybound]

I do work for people around the globe, but yes, I am speaking about Capitalism in the states. In my area, we have, no joke, a hundred builders. The biggest and most successful ones are the ones who charge the most. The other ones are usually fly-by-night guys who undercut the others and are out of business in a year. The ones who charge a good price for their service warranty their work and are there when the phone rings. Literally, the good ones have a 2-3 year wait time and the others underbid, over-promise/under-deliver and over schedule, trying to make up the money by overselling. They all cut and nail together wood, so what makes one better than the other? The difference is perception. I had a friend builder who showed up for bids in an old pickup truck. He got some jobs, but never the good ones and never a really good price. He purchased a corvette convertible, white on white and started showing up for bids in that. He got all the jobs he went on and he got a premium price. It is all perception! He drives a $100,000 car, so he must be successful. This was 20+ years ago, so it wasn't a $100,000 car then, but you get my point. A young kid in a corvette, he must be doing something right.